Holiday letters past from 2006

Happy Holidays to Everyone

My Dad used to say “Wait until you get to my age, son, it seems like we are singing Christmas carols every two weeks”. It seems like more than two weeks since we last wrote our holiday missive but not by much. Well this gives an opportunity to talk about all the exciting things that have happened over the last year. This year finds Ginny and I in good health. Kelly and Matt are also doing well, so well in fact that Kelly is pregnant and they are expecting a new born in late May 2008. They bought a co-op in Brooklyn thus fulfilling their desire to own their own place and just in time for the new addition, to the family - not the house.

The year has been tough in a number of ways, Ginny and her siblings have spent a fair amount of time looking after their Mother Lois who is now in an assisted living facility due to Alzheimer's. She seems to be doing really well and has settled in very well. Ginny has also spent some time in Philly helping her Dad who has had one heck of a tough year. It started in January with a relatively routine operation to take care of an aneurysm but there have been "unforeseen" complications and repeated trips back in the hospital at various times throughout the year. I guess that gives credence to the old saying “stay away from hospitals, you’ll get sick there”.

I’ve had some care taking to do as well. My mom is starting into Alzheimer's. I’ve gone up to Alaska once so far but I will have to make a number of trips up there in the coming year to help my brother Ritchie. So far he is doing the majority of the work while he is not at sea which is most of the winter.

Ginny and I have for the most part maintained our weight loss but we haven’t made any significant progress in losing more weight so 2008 is going to be a year of increased efforts for both of us. Even so, we have lost more than 160 pounds over the last few years with Ginny being the biggest loser/winner. I started 2007 saying “I’m going to lose at least another 20 pounds this year”. Well I think that attitude at least kept me from putting on 20 pounds.

Ginny went back to work at United, working a midnight shift (6 nights on and 2 nights off) for 6 months. So for 6 months she was like the walking dead, she couldn’t sleep during the day and of course she wasn’t supposed to sleep at night…that was frowned upon by United Airlines. So in October she retired with something like 16 years of seniority at United. This gives her the option of flying back to Philly or New York when she wants to. So far that is working out to about every other week on average. She planned on this for at least the last 16 years. When she sets a goal you can usually count on it. So now if and when I ever retire, Ginny has worked out how we are going to travel for minimal cost.

Early in 2007 I had a minor accident. I literally ran into a steel beam and got a major concussion. You may think, how can you run into a steel beam? Well the next time any of you visit our place, I’ll take you around to the little shopping center near our house and show you how it is done. The most trying time of 2007 for me was from March to the end of April when I seemed to misplace or lose just about every electronic gadget I owned. I've attached my notes from that time with this letter. Keep in mind this was after my concussion so I’m going to blame some of my absentmindedness on that. You be the judge. (See the end of this letter for a detailed description of my trials and tribulations this year.)

Ginny and I did a little traveling this year as previously noted but no major vacations as we had mostly unplanned travel. Between us however we did get to Seattle, NYC, Philly, Anchorage, Orlando, Nashville, Memphis, Chicago, Kalamazoo, Orange County CA, San Diego and Los Angeles.

We bought a couple ocean kayaks this year. Kayaking in the surf is incredibly exciting not to mention a little chilling, as the water temperature is typically in the low 50’s here in the northern Pacific. The first trip out in the Pacific I took my nephew Erik who is pretty athletic -- snow boarder, skate boarder, surfer and football playing young man…this is relevant, bear with me. About a quarter mile out in the ocean we rolled over. The kayak is only built for one person. (Did I mention that?) So I say “oh crap, maybe we should have practiced getting back in when we were in 4 feet of water, not 800 feet of water with 8 foot waves to contend with”. I went around back and pulled myself into the kayak and proceeded to yell over my shoulder to Erik about how he should be careful getting back in etc. Mid sentence he calmly says, "I’ve been back in" (implying that I should calm down and just paddle us back to shore).

We also had a visitor from Norway, Kristine Zachariassen. I think she had a good time (we went Kayaking without all the drama of rolling over in the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean). We certainly enjoyed having her here. We are planning on a visit to England and Norway next summer.

My job continues to go well, thanks in part to the corporate fraud that seems to exist in every large organization. Who knew that the juvenile judge who predicted I'd be involved in the judicial system all my life would be so accurate? He just didn’t know that I would be on the good side of fraud investigations.

Well, Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah or whatever your particular beliefs are. Enjoy whatever time you get to spend with loved ones and friends, I know Ginny and I will.

The short story of a man who seems to forget (I’m blaming it on the concussion the month before). The following is a list of events that transpired during about a 2-3 week period for me in 2007. Most of which I would have liked to forget but now it seems to be funny.

Ides of March (15th), we purchased two new cars (Toyota hybrids),
17th of March my new car (the Camry) gets hit in a parking lot.
19th of March I get the dent taken out, only cost me $85 (that was the good news for the week).
24th of March my laptop, computer bag, palm pilot, personal tax records, and a mess of other things get stolen out of the trunk of you guessed it, my new car.

28th of March I get new company laptop shipped to me at a conference in Memphis, Tenn.
29th of March I am told that my Mom possibly has: a) brain cancer, b) bone cancer in the skull, or c) leukemia but won't know for a week (it turns out it was none of those things thank goodness).

30th of March 4:30pm, flying Memphis to San Francisco through Dallas, the Dallas to San Francisco flight is canceled due to weather.
30th of March 5:30pm flight from Memphis to Dallas is delayed 1 1/2 hours.
30th of March 7:15pm after taking off from Memphis to Dallas, the flight circles outside of Dallas for an hour and 15 minutes then decides we need to refuel so we head to Houston.

30th of March 11:00pm refuel and take off again for Dallas.
31st of March 12:30am arrive Dallas 5 1/2 hours after departing Memphis for a 1 1/2 hour flight.

31st of March 1:30am to hotel room in Dallas to get 2.5 hours sleep before 6:30am flight to San Francisco.
31st of March 4:30am wake up and leave hotel room to realize I don't have my camera bag with me.
31st of March 5:00am realize that my MP3 player was in camera bag.
31st of March 5:50am get to airport after frantically going through everything in my hotel room a third time looking for $2000.00 worth of camera equipment.

31st of March 5:51AM want to sit down and cry in airport.
31st of March 6:10AM while having all of my baggage searched at the security line and getting a lecture on how my toothpaste was too large, I blurted out that "god willing this is my last flight".

31st of March 6:10AM (and 5 seconds) realize that last statement could be taken wrong.
31st of March 6:10AM (and 10 seconds) last statement was taken wrong.
31st of March 6:10am (and 15 seconds) TSA agent asks me "WHAT DID YOU SAY".
31st of March 6:10am (and 20 seconds) I quickly rephrase last statement to: “well after all the delays last night if I never have to fly on business again, that would be perfect”.

31st of March 9:30am arrive home in Pacifica and realize I left my blackberry/cell phone in the cab .
31st of March 9:35am first piece of good news, the cab driver hears me calling my cell phone and turns around to bring it back.

1st of April, NOTHING BAD HAPPENS ON APRIL FOOLS DAY, HOORAY!!!

2^nd of April I talk to my brother who updates me on the fact that my mother seems to have full blown Alzheimer's in addition to double vision and a lesion on the brain or skull. He asks, "what should we do"? I recommend he gets drunk cause that is what I'm going to do.

2^nd of April I took a moment and possibly cried.

I'm thinking of changing my nickname from hammer to hammered, or maybe even "lucky"

Not trying to depress you, in fact I thought this might give you a laugh. I hope the last year has been better for you than those two months were for me.

Love,
The hammer/hammered/lucky
John

Getting Started

This is my place to tell the true (mostly true) (ok almost true) stories of my life. Because the stories are mostly true or almost true, I will absolutely change all names to protect the innocent and the guilty. None of these stories refer to actual persons living, dead or yet to be born. I think this will be a place to get started on an actual rendition of my true life story. Hopefully you will find it humorous, full of pathos (but not to the point of being pathetic), and entertaining. I hope you will let me know if it isn't.

the john